On 21 September 2021, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) announced plans to consult on the extension of the right to request flexible working to all workers, removing the 26-week qualifying service requirement.

This proposal was part of the Conservative party's 2019 manifesto but the introduction of the "day one" right was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The proposed removal of the qualifying service period will not change the nature of the right to request flexible working, and so will not confer an automatic right on employees to work flexibly. Employers will retain the discretion on whether to grant flexible working requests.

However, it will increase the population of staff that are eligible to make these requests at a time when there is significant demand from workers to work flexibly. This demand has been driven in large part by the huge rise of home-working seen in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Employers continue to struggle with the difficult issues arising from transitioning back to office-based work, whilst balancing the other competing operational demands on their business.

To recap, the Conservative Party Manifesto from November 2019 had stated that the party encouraged flexible working and would consult on making it an employer’s “default position”. It remains to be seen how far this government is prepared to go to achieve this. It should be of some relief to employers however, that in June 2021, the government confirmed that it had no plan to introduce a legal right to work from home. No doubt such a requirement would be infeasible for many businesses.

If you wish to discuss any of the issues above, please contact one of the team at Synchrony Law.